How do you know if children are growing spiritually? Use 2 Peter 1:3-8 as a guide to foster and recognize spiritual growth.

How do you evaluate if children are spiritually effective and productive? Do you measure Scripture memory, faithful attendance, good behavior, or bringing a Bible to class? While these may be outward expressions of a child’s faith, we must look deeper to ensure that our children are truly growing. With Peter’s guide, we can learn to recognize qualities that add up to spiritual growth.

Start With Faith

In 2 Peter 1:5, Peter calls us to start with faith—the act of believing in Jesus Christ. Faith, as Hebrews 11:1 states, is being sure of the promises we hope for and certain of God’s answers that we do not see.

Building faith in children is perhaps the simplest thing to do because kids’ naturally trust. Newborn babies instinctively know that trusting their mom and dad is paramount for survival. For kids, faith is a way of seeing the world. And it’s that trusting faith that Jesus calls all of us to emulate—to become like children.

Sum It Up

Since faith hinges on the person and promises of Jesus Christ, be intentional about presenting the claims of Christ to children. Try these easy steps to get started:

• Help children understand that they must respond in faith to what Jesus did for them on the cross. Teach kids how to respond!
• Introduce children to God’s “precious promises“—not just Bible stories. When children receive and believe the promises in the Bible, they’ll grow in faith.
• As children share their needs and prayer requests, encourage them with promises from the Bible.
• Each week, ask kids which of God’s promises they relied on during the previous week.

As children’s ministers who long to make a difference in children’s lives, we may lose faith in the One who brings about growth. We may begin, instead, to trust ourselves and our abilities. If so, we’re operating in unbelief. The weight of a child’s spiritual growth rests not on us but on God. We must never forget that God is the one wielding the power to open little hearts and give children the discernment and courage to do what’s right.

Add Goodness to Grow in Faith

God’s nature is goodness. In fact, the mercy and compassion we experience are only small hints of his glory. But even with those glimpses of God’s mercy and compassion, it’s easy to doubt God’s goodness when we face challenging circumstances. Remembering that God is good and worthy of trust is an important part of our Christian journeys.

God promised his people, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” That soft heart and new spirit enables us to trust God’s goodness and grow in goodness. When we realize that we can’t cultivate goodness on our own, we rely on the Holy Spirit to bear that fruit in us.

Sum It Up

As God interacts with us, mercy and compassion are two of the ways we can see God’s goodness. To help children have an accurate perspective of God’s goodness, help them see God’s mercy and compassion. Try these strategies to help kids spot God’s goodness:

• When circumstances in kids’ lives don’t make sense in light of what the Bible says about God, acknowledge their doubts.
• Show kids examples of God’s goodness by diving into the Bible together to look for stories that exemplify God’s character.
• Encourage kids that God’s love for them is more powerful than anything else in the world.

Add Knowledge to Grow in Faith

Knowing God is a lifelong task. Reading the Bible, knowing the biblical accounts, relating to other Christians, understanding how God interacts with humanity—all these things contribute to a knowledge of God.

Yet in her book With All Their Heart, Christine Yount writes that we’re at risk of becoming immune to God’s Word simply because of familiarity. “That’s a risk for our children as well,” she writes, “especially if as Christian parents we have surrounded them with quality Christian education at home and church. The stories they’ve heard from infancy may be just that—stories.”

We must help our children know the Word and understand it. They must see behind the actual words to interact with God—the author of the words.

Sum It Up

As teachers and shepherds, we can never underestimate how much impact the knowledge of God’s Word might have in a child’s life. Try these tips to help your Sunday school kids grow in biblical knowledge:

• Ask God to reveal truth to you—the teacher—first. Then you cancan
• Avoid teaching the Bible as mere stories. Instead, focus on teaching truths about God’s character through accounts about God’s encounters with his people.
• Discuss with children what each biblical account reveals about who God is so they truly grow in knowing God.
• Help your kids understand one piece of the puzzle at a time.

Occasionally, you’ll be blessed to see a child have an “aha” moment. Those moments give you a little window into the work God is doing in a child’s heart. For example, in our class of 4- and 5-year olds, we made a collage banner of all the things Jesus is Lord over. A little boy named Jacob called me over to show what he’d drawn by his section of the collage.

“This man is Jesus,” Jacob explained. “And this is a heart by Jesus because I love him.”

Sunday school teachers, parents, and loving family members certainly plant seeds, but I’m convinced that God takes full responsibility—and glory—in those “aha” moments.

Add Self-Control to Grow in Faith

Self-control is a virtue of faith that adults sometimes expect of kids automatically, even when some types of self-control aren’t realistic for certain ages. Children need rules and structure to help them develop self-control. However, what you can expect from a preschooler in the area of self-control is much different from what you can expect from a preteen.

When you introduce rules to your children, don’t forego the opportunity to introduce grace, too. Cheri Fuller writes, “Heart obedience develops only within the context of a firm grasp of the grace of God.” Be consistent when enforcing consequences and rules for children, but be lavish with grace.

Sum It Up

Consider these ideas to help your kids develop self-control:

• Children need logical consequences. If a child throws a fit in class about a toy, don’t deny her a snack as punishment. That’s not logical to the child. Instead, remove the toy and quietly explain why the child’s behavior isn’t appropriate. Giving instruction after a logical consequence helps the child make the right choice next time.
• Children ages 2 to 3 may not understand concepts such as sharing. It’s better to remove the child or the object in question than to punish the child for something he doesn’t understand is wrong.
• For preschoolers and kindergartners, explain why behaviors such as hitting or throwing food are not OK.
• Include elementary-age children in creating classroom rules. Older children know what acceptable behavior looks like and can more adequately control themselves.

Add Perseverance to Grow in Faith

Perseverance means not giving up on God and not giving up on faith, even when what you expected or wanted didn’t happen.

Because we’re each broken by sin, God uses gentle persuasion to change us. As children’s pastor Larry Shallenberger says, sometimes God has to reset some of the broken bones of our character. This involves a rebreaking and a rehealing.

Perseverance is trusting that God acts out of love toward us even when our circumstances seem to tell us otherwise. Perseverance is the confidence that on the other side of suffering, we’ll begin to think and behave a little more like Christ.

Sum It Up

True perseverance is a tough concept for most American children to understand, since they live in a fast-food, microwaved world. Prayer, knowledge of Jesus’ suffering, an understanding of others’ stories, and opportunities to debrief feelings can help children learn to persevere. Try these tips to encourage perseverance in kids:

• Get kids out of their comfort zones so they can see what life is like for other people. Take them on a mission trip to a developing country or to an inner city. Introduce them to people with disabilities who’ve overcome obstacles.
• After kids have seen what life is like for other people, ask kids how they can persevere in their own lives.

You might be surprised at what kids are experiencing at such young ages. “I think that as children’s ministers and teachers, we need to allow time for children to talk about their pain and respond to it,” Larry says. “We need to create shepherding experiences in which children can share their frustrations and challenges.”

Add Godliness to Grow in Faith

Growing faith is a lifetime pursuit, but there are moments in our lives when we see our growth in godliness. Larry notes that in walking with Christ, we begin to discover that God’s laws are like lines on a map that direct us to understanding God’s nature. Cultivate godliness in children by helping them understand the moral reasoning behind the rules we teach them.

“We need to trust children’s capacity to be motivated to want to please God because they love him and want to be like him,” Larry says. “We need to give them a heart for godliness that will endure.”

Sum It Up

Godliness can’t happen without God at work in us. Glynis Belec, a children’s minister and author from Ontario, recommends a practical way for leaders to cultivate godliness in children. She says, “When a child observes adults living lives consistent with what they’re learning through the Bible…wonderful things happen.”

Glynis recommends that we ask ourselves these questions:

• Is my perspective from the world or from God’s Word?
• Do I show a lack of restraint in my life, or do I control myself and strive for upright living in the eyes of God?
• Does my life and teaching impart a vision of sacrifice and serving the Savior, or do my needs come first?

Beyond providing an example of godliness, Glynis encourages us to remember that godliness is a heart issue. She says, “I really feel it [godliness] is more important to develop the hearts of our children than to develop a rigid set of rules.”

Godliness comes when we stop trying to make ourselves holy and instead let the Holy Spirit do the refining work in us. As Paul said, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

Add Brotherly Kindness to Grow in Faith

Brotherly kindness, or kindness toward other Christians, involves compassion, empathy, and forgiveness.

Children first learn what forgiveness is by experiencing it firsthand. As children experience the feeling of being forgiven, they can begin to forgive those around them. Eventually compassion will compel them to forgive as Christ calls them to—whether the people who hurt them are sorry or not.

Sum It Up

We teach children to say “I’m sorry,” but forgiveness is a bit more. Forgiveness costs us something, just as it cost Christ something on the cross. When we forgive, we resist our urge to make someone pay for their mistakes.

As you teach kids to practice brotherly kindness and forgiveness, consider these ideas:

• Help children understand that they must obey Jesus’ command to forgive in order to experience his forgiveness fully (Matthew 6:14-15).
• Children can better understand Jesus’ sacrifice by interacting with other believers in compassion, empathy, and forgiveness. Provide opportunities for kids to interact with one another, and guide them to display empathy and compassion as they play.

In the book A Love So Big, Sheila Walsh summarizes the importance of forgiveness: “I am convinced that most of us have no concept of what we have been delivered from or what our sin cost Christ. And it is impossible to appreciate how much we are loved unless we realize how much we have been forgiven.”

Add Love to Grow in Faith

The Apostle John gives us a clear picture of what love looks like in 1 John 3:16-18: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth.”

Because our society values philanthropy, teachers and parents—Christian or not—teach kids about the importance of service and charity. In some ways, service seemingly has become its own religion. In faith development, however, service is an act of worship rather than an end in itself.

Sum It Up

Provide opportunities for kids to show God’s love by serving others:

• Encourage children to serve at school and in their community.
• Organize church service projects kids can get involved in.
• Feed people in need with physical food and spiritual food, and clothe them with sweaters and grace.
• Share Christ’s love with people in a nursing home.

Use service to develop in children not only generous hearts but also an understanding of Jesus’ selfless acts of love—especially his sacrifice on the cross.

Multiply Everything

Peter writes, “For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

As Christians, we want to constantly grow our faith and possess the qualities Peter names in “increasing measure.” But Peter doesn’t say we need to master these godly characteristics. Our desire to be like Christ doesn’t make us holy, and despite his promise of redemption and heaven, we’re still sinful.

Even so, our joy is to labor with God to add godly qualities to children’s lives—and multiply their faith.

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Misty Anne Winzenried served as Dean of Teaching and Learning at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology.

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